A fisherman’s Reflections on a beautiful but troubled world
Chapter 21 - Justice, Crime and Punishment

                        Let us, of both races in the south, throw off the shackles of racial
                        and sectional prejudice, and rise above the clouds of ignorance,
                        narrowness and selfishness.  ...  The Negro can afford to be wronged;
                        the white man cannot afford to wrong him.  If a white man steals a
                        Negro’s ballot, it is the white man who is permanently injured.  Physical
                        death comes to the one Negro lynched in a county, but death of the morals,
                        death of the soul, comes to the thousands responsible for the lynching. ... 

There is no escape through law of man or God, from the inevitable:  
                                    The laws of changeless Justice, bind oppressor with oppressed;
                                    and close as sin and suffering joined, we march to fate abreast.
                        Let us pray God for a blotting out of sectional differences and racial
                        animosities; a determination to administer absolute Justice; and a willing
                        obedience to the mandates of law.  This, coupled with our material prosperity
                        will bring our beloved South, a new heaven and a new earth.

                                                            Booker T. Washington, speeches, 1895 & 1896

We are confronted primarily with a moral issue.  It is as old as the Scriptures
and as clear as the American Constitution.  The heart of the question is whether
all Americans are to be afforded equal rights and equal opportunities.  ...  One
hundred years of delay have passed since President Lincoln freed the slaves,
yet their heirs, their grandsons, are not fully free.  They are not yet freed from
the bonds of injustice.  They are not yet free from social and economic oppression. 
And this Nation, for all its hopes and all its boasts, will not be fully free until
all its citizens are free.

We preach freedom around the world, and we mean it, and we cherish our freedom
here at home; but are we to say to the world, and much more importantly, to each
other, that this is a land of the free except for the Negroes; that we have no second-
class citizens except for the Negroes; that we have no class or caste system, no
ghettoes, no master race, except with respect to Negroes ?   The time has come for
this nation to fulfill its promise.  Those who do nothing are inviting shame as well
as violence.  Those who act boldly are recognising right as well as reality.  But
legislation cannot solve this problem alone.  It must be solved in the homes of every
American in every community across our country.

                        President John F. Kennedy, Civil Rights Message, 11 June 1963

Since the end of World War II, war criminals and other human rights abusers have
lived in a golden age of impunity, and the international community has shown little courage or moral will to put a stop to crimes against humanity.

Tony Freemantle, Crying for Justice,
A Houston Chronicle Special Report

                        Justice is conscience, not a personal conscience but the conscience of the whole
                        of humanity.  Those who clearly recognise the voice of their own conscience,
                        usually recognise also the voice of Justice.

                                                Alexander Solzhenitsyn, The Struggle Intensifies, October 1967

Justice is justly represented blind, because she sees no difference in the parties
concerned.  She has but one scale and weight, for rich and poor, great and small.
Her sentence is not guided by the person, but the cause.   Impartiality is the
life of justice, as justice is that of government.

                                                William Penn, 1644 – 1712, Quaker, founder of Pennsylvania

At best, man is the noblest of the animals;
separated from Law and Justice, he is the worst.

Aristotle,  384 – 322 BC,  Greek Philosopher

                        Justice delayed is Justice denied.

                                                William Gladstone,  1809 – 1898, British Prime Minister

Statue of Justice

I have included a number of quotations on justice above, because, I am convinced that, as with the other great virtues and principles of civilisation, we are in danger of losing sight of its meaning and value.  As a child I often gazed at the statues and portraits of Justice depicted in Arthur Mee’s Children’s Encyclopaedia, with some awe and admiration.  Justice was usually represented as woman, a woman of great beauty, purity and strength of character.  The Quaker William Penn who suffered his own share of injustice in both England and America, stated, Justice is mostly pictured blind or blindfolded, to emphasize her complete impartiality.  But today our leaders cloud the concept of justice with ideas of national security, political expediency, and an array of legal loopholes – as if Justice was served by making the letter of the law rather than its spirit, the supreme factor. 

William Penn, Quaker, Pennsylvania founder.  “Justice is rightly represented blind.  She has but one scale … Her sentence is not guided by the person, but the cause.”

Demosthenes,  “the love of truth and justice within us, is the image of God”

The concept of justice is often linked closely with that of truth.  Demosthenes said that what we have in us of the image of God, is the love of truth and justice.  Truth sets us free, said Jesus, and where truth is suppressed, freedom dies.  No wonder the Nazi Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels said, “It is vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent; for Truth is the mortal enemy of the Lie, and thus by extension, the Truth is the greatest enemy of the State”.   It would seem in this the beginning of the 21^st century, that several governments and their state-appointed authorities, are following Goebbels’ dictum, and pressuring the media to conform, especially in matters relating to war and justice.  And as some of the most outspoken opponents of what is really going on inside the corridors of power, and in the conflict areas of Chechnya, Burma, the Sudan, Iraq and Afghanistan, have discovered, George Orwell’s statement remains true today : “During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act”.

Joseph Goebbels, the father of modern propaganda

George Orwell, author of 1984, and Animal Farm.  “During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.”

Albert Einstein, the great physicist and scientist, said, “I am firmly convinced that the passionate will for justice and truth has done more to improve the human condition than calculating political shrewdness which in the long run only breeds general mistrust”.   

Albert Einstein, “”… the passionate will for justice and truth …

Genocide and Slaughter

However depressing and sobering it might be, I think it would be salutary to remind ourselves how many innocent persons have been murdered within the last hundred years, in civil wars, and purges, by military death squads, under despotic regimes, and from brutal inhumane ethnic cleansing.  (The figures in the table below are estimates from knowledgeable sources.)

Estimates of deaths caused by internal civil wars, genocide and ethnic cleansing

The appalling figures underscore the priceless importance of justice, when platitudes or appeals to conscience evoke little response.   The incomplete list reveals over 42 million brutal deaths, not from international wars, but from internal strife, tribal battles, repression, proxy-invasions, and ethnic cleansing.  And the list does not include the tens of thousands murdered and tortured in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Chile, or other south and central American states during periods of military rule or of foreign financed military death squads.

Contra soldiers in Nicaragua

Conflict in Somalia

Soldiers fighting in East Timor

One of countless victims in Darfur

Sad evidence of Darfur atrocities

The brutality and utter inhumanity of most of these killings beggars beliefs.  I have been sickened to read and to hear firsthand, accounts of the depraved behaviour.  How could men made in the image of God descend to such depravity?  Khmer Rouge soldiers regularly tortured children, women, old men, priests, and civilians who were innocent of any crime and no threat to their murderous regime.  The torture and murder was conducted with delight and laughter.  Family members were forced to kill each other or face similar torture and death (which they usually did anyway).  Whether Pol Pot’s troops, or brutal militia thugs in Darfur, Sudan, West Africa, Central Africa, Latin America, Indonesia, Nazi Germany, the Ku Klux Klan, Apartheid South Africa, or in the jails and torture chambers of the KGB, communist China, North Korea, or even Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo Bay, we can only ask what made otherwise normal young men become such demonized monsters to treat fellow human beings as they have. 

Graves of village people massacred in Mai Lai, Vietnam

Lt William Caley of Mai Lai, pardoned by President Nixon.

Dog torture of prisoners in Abu Ghraib

Their political and military masters thought they were untouchable.  “We can kill anybody for anything”, said a Punjabi Captain leading the slaughter of Bangladeshis in 1971, “We are accountable to no-one”. A young ‘chlop’ or Khmer Rouge guard told his victims, “We gain nothing if we keep you.  You are worth nothing to us”. Such people have lost their humanity, killed their own souls.  An ordinary man in Cambodia, Soeum Himm, a former schoolteacher, when about to be murdered by the Khmer Rouge, told his family:  “If there is no love, justice can’t exist.  Don’t try to argue for justice with people who don’t understand the principle of love. They’ll never listen to you.” 

How many of those responsible for these millions of deaths, were ever brought to justice?  Not the rulers of Lenin’s and Stalin’s USSR, or the officials of Mao’s regime in China, not the Congolese or Ethiopian warlords, and few of the leaders of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, or of the Indonesian military in East Timor.  Some of the world’s worst criminals were allowed to grow old and die of natural causes, - such as Joseph Stalin, Pol Pot, and Idi Amin.   This is one of many reasons I believe that there has to be a final day of judgment before a supreme, impartial but all-knowing Judge.  Attempts to try the war criminals and despots of Rwanda, Burundi, Bosnia and Chile, have had very limited success. 

Joseph Stalin

Pap doc and Baby Doc, of Haiti

Idi Amin of Uganda

Human justice systems appear to be incapable of handling cases of such enormous wickedness and cruelty. In Northern Ireland, the British government appears to be willing to let confessed murderers go free in order to achieve agreements on a political settlement.   Former President Jimmy Carter said that perpetrators of war crimes and human rights abuses should be punished; but often the ones who are accused, are so powerful, they won’t accept the tribunal or the new regime, unless they receive amnesty.  But even bastions of democracy protect war criminals in their own ranks.  Lt. William Caley the leader of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam was cosseted by the U.S. Army and pardoned once the media outcry had died down.  A former instigator and organizer of contra militias and death squads in Central America, Elliott Abrams, was an assistant secretary for Human Rights (!), and President of an Ethics and Public Policy Center. Abrams was convicted of lying to congress during the contra arms scandal. He is presently occupying a high office in the Bush administration.

Elliott Abrams.  Organiser of contra militias and death squads in Central America, who lied to Congress during the arms for Contra Investigations, yet was made an Assistant Secretary for Human Rights and President of an Ethics and Public Policy Center, by the Bush Administration.

The one country that has led the world in exposing the truth and having perpetrators confess publicly to their crimes is South Africa where the indominatable Archbishop Desmond Tutu led the Peace and Reconciliation mission.  It had been established in 1994, and the public hearings began in 1996.  Those who had committed atrocities had to apply to the Amnesty Committee of the truth commission to escape prosecution. Provided they confessed to their crime, and could prove it was perpetrated to further the aims of a political organisation, and if it was not considered by the committee to be egregrious, amnesty was likely to be granted [Their use of the word ‘egregrious’ surprised me.  The majority of the apartheid crimes were reprehensible.  How the commission could find some extraordinarily so, is difficult to imagine.].  Some in South Africa felt that amnesty was a travesty, particularly families of murdered civil rights leaders and anti-apartheid protestors.  Steve Biko’s widow was one of these.  After what passed for an investigation into his death, the judge had concluded that no-one was responsible, though he had died from massive head injuries and was perfectly healthy when the police took him into custody.  Nomtsikelelo Biko said, “We all want reconciliation, but it must come with something.  It must come with justice, and if not, then there must be some form of compensation”. 

The Commission hearings, the telling of the truth, began slowly with victims coming forward, and their tormentors skulking behind walls of silence and lies, wrote Tony Freemantle.  The focus was first on the victims.  A sobered nation was riveted by harrowing tales of torture and murder at the hands of a racist minority government that had become increasingly brutal while its grip on power weakened.  It was a remarkable catharsis for a people who had cried in silence all those years, nursing the bitter cocktail of pain and injustice.  By the fall of 96, the trickle of truth became a flood, exposing the highest, darkest corners of the apartheid system to light of public scrutiny.  Desmond Tutu broke down in tears at one point.  The dreadful accounts of callous inhumanity and brutality were at times more than he could bear.  But then he realized that he could not chair the hearings competently if he allowed his own feelings to be expressed in that way.  So he composed himself, and thereafter wept only in private.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu who bravely chaired the Peace and Reconciliation Commission after the fall of the Apartheid regime

Steve Biko, murdered by South African security police.  His life was the subject of the film, Cry Freedom.

Tutu and his vice-chairman Alex Boraine, managed the commission with able, steady hands, eliciting praise and high marks from observers.  Tutu had made it clear that he would conduct an impartial enquiry into atrocities on both sides of the struggle, - those committed by both the apartheid government and by the ANC.  Despite pressure from ANC members of the new government, the Archbishop stuck to that position.   Ultimately, many South Africans came to recognize, the real culprits of the criminality, cruelty and violence, were the architects, supporters and followers of the whole apartheid system, - the institutionalized policy of racial separation which the United Nations branded as a crime against humanity. [Tony Freemantle, Light shines at last into apartheid’s darkest corners, Houston Chronicle, 1966]  The same, I suppose, could be said of those who established and supported the Nazi regime in Germany, the totalitarian communist systems of Russia and China; and those who designed or were complicit in the police states and right wing military regimes of Latin America, Myanmar, and the Philippines during the worst excesses of the Presidency of Ferdinand Marcos.  In Africa, tribal enmities were a driving force behind atrocities in Rwanda, Burundi, Nigeria, Liberia and the Congo.  Other despotic rules were more the product of demonic individuals who managed to seize power, - men like Papa Doc in Haiti, Idi Amin in Uganda and Pol Pot in Cambodia, not one of which ever faced a trial for their many hideous crimes against humanity. 

But now we will turn from a consideration of genocide and brutal injustices, to the need for justice on matters of civil crime, financial embezzlement, and corporate mendacity.

I record the assortment of major financial crimes above to illustrate what I see as a basic weakness of the whole capitalist system.  It is founded on human greed and avarice.  The modern day Midas’s, Shylock’s and Scrooge’s, though they wear immaculate business suits and conform to cultural norms, possess rotten, covetous hearts that often lead them into opportunist crimes of fraud, embezzlement and exploitation.  Fortunately not all businessmen are like that.  Some very successful leaders in finance and industry have been able to resist temptation and to place limits on their appetites for greater profits.  But sadly, some operators have fouled their corporate nests and robbed thousands of investors, customers and/or employees in the process.  My thesis is that we inflame the greed of corporate executives by demanding them to produce higher and higher profits, and by praising and honouring the ones who excel.  Corporate and financial success is not measured by the production of affordable goods, by the creation of sustainable jobs paying reasonable wages, or by passing benefits on to customers in the form of lower charges or lesser interest.   No, it is mostly seen in the narrow context of huge profits. 

I see a parallel (if I may express an older generation’s view), in advertising, in film and video and music, and in the media’s shameless use of sensational sex and sex images, that just have to have an impact on our teens and pre-teens, when there is little balancing effort to promote values of decency and modesty, restraint or discipline.  So be it in a free society I guess.  But why then should we be surprised when teenage pregnancies reach an all time high, and when venereal disease and aids are rampant, when couples put their own pleasure and indulgence before the welfare of their children or the hurt caused to injured parties.  In both the business and the entertainment world, passions are fed that will inevitably result in excessively selfish behaviour.  My own view which many will no doubt consider to be narrow or old-fashioned, is that we need to get back to reminding ourselves of the bedrock importance to individuals and society of virtues like honesty, integrity, truthfulness, loyalty, self-control, and purity, - to say nothing of courtesy, consideration, kindness and goodness.  We should also give our children the opportunity to learn these beautiful qualities at school and in the home, through appropriate literature, poetry, and – dare I say it, from the Bible. 

As wealth has been amassed the financial assets of banks have increased, opportunities afforded to global businesses and corporations have likewise expanded.  This has opened the door to theft, manipulation and asset-stripping, on scales that would have been impossible a few decades ago.  Corporate thieves and cheating bankers have grasped the opportunities presented with alacrity.  These robbers use no guns or balaclavas, neither do they come from the ranks of the disadvantaged or from conventional criminal elements in society.  They wear business suits and ride in chauffeur-driven limousines.  They lecture to students of business and economics in the prestigious universities.  They advise our government leaders on economic and financial policy.   They present themselves as society’s benefactors and wealth-creators, rather than the money manipulators they are.  And until their crimes are apparent, they are lauded and revered in the pages of the Wall street Journal and the Financial Times.  Many were regular guests at the White House or in 10 Downing Street.   Some British Cabinet Ministers, European Presidents or Prime Ministers, and U.S. Senators and Congressmen, have been their bedfellows, or willing participants in their fraudulent schemes.   

The way modern judicial systems treat big crooks and small offenders, is eloquently described by Robert McChesney in his book, Rich Media, Poor Democracy :  “Blue collar crime generates harsh sentences while white collar crime (almost always for vastly greater amounts of money), gets kid gloves treatment by comparison.  In 2000 for example, a Texan man received sixteen years in prison for stealing a Snickers candy bar, while at the same time, four executives at Hoffman-LaRoche Ltd. were found guilty of conspiring to suppress and eliminate competition in the vitamin industry, in what the Justice Department called perhaps the largest criminal antitrust conspiracy in history.  The cost to consumers and public health was nearly immeasurable.  The four executives were fined from $75,000 to $350,000 and received prison terms ranging from three to four months.”  How can ordinary people have confidence in a national justice system when the ‘çream’ of society behaves like those mentioned above?  - And when justice is obviously not impartial, and those occupying high office who may not have been involved in illegalities, refuse to prosecute, or to release information from investigations conducted with taxpayers money, - what are the general public to think? 

Our Judicial and Penal Systems

My impressions of the fairness and decency of our police took an early knock when one New Year’s eve, I and a friend came across a drunk man lying in a semi-conscious condition, in a street near the harbour.  It was a dry but bitterly cold night, and we assumed that the man would freeze to death or die of exposure if he remained there.  We were just teenage boys and were not sure what the correct course of action should be, but as the Police Station was just 200 yards up the road, we thought it would be as good a place as any to take him for shelter.  Our reception was less than friendly.  The sole officer on duty must have been hoping for a quiet night, and resented having the responsibility for a drunk thrust upon him.  Apparently he knew the man, who was not local.  We had to stay while the policeman went through the routine of searching the man’s pockets and recording the few possessions and little bit of money he had.  This was carried out with little respect for the person, and with considerable rough handling by the officer.  He then removed the fellow’s shoes, belt and tie, and threw him into a cell, returning only to toss a blanket in after him.  No doubt the treatment was much better than such a man would have received in most other countries, but to me it was strangely heavy-handed given that he had committed no crime other than to put himself in a position of danger in his drunken stupor.  I guess I was just very young and naïve, but I determined then that if I ever found a person in similar vulnerable circumstances, police stations would be well down my list of possible places of refuge.

Barlinnie prison, Scotland

Years later I was to visit prisons in Britain, Africa, and the Far East, and to see first hand how these recipients of justice are treated.  We lived not far from Saughton prison in Scotland, and I used to visit Peterhead prison with church ministry teams.  I saw prisons in African states, and in Yemen, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines and Italy.  When I visited Yemen, prisoners were often allowed out with leg irons and shackles on, to forage for food as best they could.  In one provincial capital in Thailand, I witnessed prisoners emerging from court, chained hand and foot, and put onto prison transport vans to the sound of weeping from mothers, sisters and relatives.

Young man from Britain, imprisoned in Bangkok’s notorious prison for drug offenders.

Now, I have no doubt that imprisonment is necessary for men of violence.  One lovely girl I knew at school was later murdered in Canada by a prisoner on parole who she took pity on and allowed to work in her garden.  But that man was also mentally ill.  It is also clear that there has to be a strict regime to control large numbers of potentially dangerous criminals, and that such men have forfeted the right to many comforts.  That I accept.  However, it seems to me, after much thought and some study of the subject, that prison itself accomplishes little and costs a lot.  In the case of young offenders, it can inform and equip them for even more and worse criminal activity. 

Children incarcerated in a Manila prison

My own conclusion is that imprisonment should be used only for those that constitute a danger to the public, - namely the violent and abusive.  And even with them there has to be a better approach to mental and emotional health than our system can offer at present.  Those who offend due to drug addiction, or who are simply addicts, should not be housed with other criminals, - especially the young.  Our prisons are currently over-crowded, and the system can barely cope.  Reducing numbers would save the country considerable unnecessary cost.  We need another Elizabeth Fry, - the Quaker lady who pioneered prison reforms.

Elizabeth Fry, the great Quaker lady who pioneered prison reform and relief for the poor and homeless.

That severe sentences with no balancing rehabilitative efforts only drive young people into becoming hardened criminals through the brutality and the despair it produces, is surely evident by the American experience.  The BBC documentary “Prisoners of Katrina”, lifted the lid on all that was wrong and corrupt in the judicial system of the USA – particularly in Louisiana.  What viewers saw was reminiscent of the kind of justice that existed in the least democratic and less civilized states in the world.  In the words of the BBC narrators, the system of justice was “bankrupt”.   Many of those who suffered appalling conditions in the New Orleans prisons, and who had their records destroyed for ever, were simply awaiting trial, and often for as little as a traffic violation or non-payment of a fine.  Most were black and poor, though some white prisoners also suffered. But they were incarcerated in crowded cells alongside murders and rapists. The episode was reminiscent of the kind of justice prevailing in the mock trials of white murderers of black people in the southern states until the time of Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Legislation.

The sports dome in New Orleans that became a prison for victims of the Katrina storm

Katrina victims in Louisiana, USA

Now, no doubt some will argue that a ‘soft’ approach will be ineffective, and that one must wield a big stick.  My answer would be – take a look at the USA and its penal system before you tell me that a brutal response works.  Then others will ask for an example of a country where the soft approach yielded good results.  I will answer – Australia.  From 1788 to 1867, Britain shipped over 160,000 convicted criminals to Australia.  Not all were guilty of murder or violence, - many had committed petty offences.  But off to the colony they were sent, in appalling conditions, and under brutal supervisors.  The territory then had a series of military governors who took a “hang them and flog them” approach to the criminal immigrants who were assigned to whatever work their keepers desired.  They were also contracted out like slaves to the free settlers who could administer corporal punishment as they thought fit.

One of the Governors with a reputation for harsh discipline was Captain William Bligh of the “Bounty” fame.  There have been attempts in recent days to rehabilitate Bligh and to present him as a stern but decent officer who had to mete out the prescribed punishments of his day.  If the Bounty mutiny was the only such one in his career, that might be plausible.  But it was not.  Some of his New South Wales colonists rebelled